Beginners
A few thoughts about the scaries of starting again and how not all disabled people want to be paralympians. Rostrum speech theme: Olympics
I’ve always wondered at what age athletes decide to commit their life to sport. To endlessly pursue a career in something that commands their entire attention, discipline and time. When it comes to Olympians specifically, when is the exact moment that they whole heartedly decide this is their pursuit. Their goal for life…a gold medal.
Unlike a footballer that plays all winter in a seasonal league or a tennis star who has four grand slam opportunities to enter. I’m both inspired and motivated to watch the results of the many years of dedication that these individuals’ posses. To train for an opportunity that occurs once every 4 years, a moment so fleeting in time.
As the Olympics wrapped up to a close, Paris prepares to welcome another 4400 athletes. Unlike those that came before them, many of these might not of been training their whole life for this one moment. Some have for sure, but I can’t imagine many athletes spent their childhood thinking they’d become disabled, let alone re-present their country in the biggest sporting competition on earth.
And for me that’s such a beautiful thing.
There aren’t many silver linings to acquiring a disability in later life, but the prospective of having another shot at something was freeing and exciting at the time. That if you really wanted too - with training and dedication you might still get you a have a shot at becoming a champion.
In the UK, there are annual games held every year for newly injured individuals to try their hand at almost anything that the para sport world has to offer. Fencing, basketball, hand cycling and boccia.
It was during these games in 2019, I realised I was actually good at basketball. My childhood netball experience and extensive arm length, paired with my speed and nippiness in a chair meant I was quite the natural. I started training and the dreams of joining a team began.
My passion was short lived though.
Yes there was a brief period when I thought anything was possible and I might make the England squad, but reality hit when I realised that would involved training 3 times a week somewhere 2 hours away. And more of a shock to me, I’d had to sacrifice my Friday nights and Saturdays to train and play games. We all know how that one goes.
Contrary to modern culture and societies expectations just because we are disabled - a Paralympian it makes us not. We don’t all want to be one, we aren’t all naturally athletes and certainly, we don’t all have the drive or dedication.
Ironically, I say this is as I train for my second marathon. Committed to 6am runs around Sydney on Sunday, it’s funny what you’ll give up when you really do want something. The times when drive and dedication finally rear their head.
But this did get me thinking.
Why is it not normalised to start again at any age, to be a beginner and bad at something. I’m not necessarily talking about sport. Think bigger - to move back to the bottom of the career ladder or be the new person in a completely new place, to go back on the dating scene after a decade with a partner, or even back too school when your kids are still there.
Specifically, as a millennial woman, the conversations I have with my peers around starting again often come from a deep rooted place of fear.
We want to travel but we are scared to leave because we have to come back and it’ll all be different, or worse, something or someone might not be there. Many of the women I know, are working in careers they no longer want (we did pick them at the age of 18 after all) - but starting again might mean loosing the salary they’ve worked so hard to establish and fight for. And sadly, sometimes starting again comes in the form of realising their values don’t align with their partners anymore, and they take a step back when they thoughts they should be making the next step forward.
This is a decade when so many important life decisions are made, but we are scared to say I don’t want this, and have to start all over again.
Looking at modern society there’s no wonder either. We are constantly told that we are behind. Forbes 30 under 30 list makes us feel like we should be building a empire and if we aren’t an entrepreneur we aren’t making it. Closer to home, our own social media feeds fuel constant comparisons and remind you of the things you could or should be doing, maybe even with someone else.
It’s a trap into thinking you already should have it all, so you don’t want to get off the wheel and start again.
Here of course, I’m talking about when it’s a choice and when we have control. But let’s not forget that sometimes we don’t get any option.
Betrayal, illness, divorce, death - or like for me, disability. These can have shattering consequences when the game of life takes it’s wicked turn. When we are forced to ride the sake tail all the way back down to the bottom of the board whether we wanted to or not.
It is there we dust our self-off and navigate the game again, an entirely different life but knowing what existed before it.
My point is, we must welcome times like these, both the experiences we created and those thrust upon us. To ultimately be OK with going back to the beginning, time and time again, starting something new and being inexperienced in an area or industry. We must embrace trying a thing we know nearly nothing about, with blind hope or faith that we might find out feet and maybe one day succeed - that it might work out.
Even if we fail or it doesn’t work out and were forced to walk away - is it really the end of the world? Or can we hold our head high that we gave it a shot, all things considered.
As I close, I’d like to leave you with something positive and thought provoking I found on Instagram, amongst the photos of weddings, new houses and new borns that is a millennial woman’s feed. It read along these lines:
“I can’t stop thinking about the fact I’m 35 and the average woman lives to 72. What that means for me, is I may possibly have a whole another lifetime ahead of me. Another 35 years. Except this time, the entirety of those 35 years will be in my control. No more childhood taking up a 3rd of it for rearing, no more shakey and uncertain early adulthood.
Instead it will perhaps be 35 whole years of walking through life conscious, aware of some of the lesson learned, side by side with some family I’ve chosen and some resources I’ve gathered. Some practice kissing and some tools for friendship. Some strategies for coping and an idea of what I need to be well.
This is a beautiful horizon…”
For me, it makes me feel like now is the greatest time to start again: to move countries, switch jobs and build a brand new life with everything I already posses from my 31 years in this world.
And my question for you is this - If you were to go back to being a beginner, to start a fresh or get another go at a shot. Is it really that scary? Or is it a perfect opportunity disguised as something more sinister.
Doesn’t every cloud have a silver lining?